Valkyrie
by Shadow Padawan
Summary: Pansy finds herself at Strategic Headquarters the night before the Battle of Hogwarts...


The night it all ended, the days had just turned into May. The night was clear and barely cool. Pansy used to love these nights when she was younger. She, Draco and some of the others would sneak out and go flying and swimming in the lake. But that night she found herself portkeying to Strategic Headquarters. There was a tenseness in her body she did not recognize or like. Pansy had never been good with divination and intuition was a thing she trusted rarely and with caution. But that night it was different. Everything seemed still to her, as though awaiting a command to go. The halls of Headquarters were quiet and her footsteps echoed in the silence as she walked. She wasn't sure what she was looking for or what she wanted. But here there was a strange sense of security, a sense absent at Malfoy Manor where the Lord cast his long, heavy shadow over everything. Safer than at school, where she did not know who was her friend and who her enemy.

Voices from the strategy room made her stop. She leaned against the wall in the dark and took in a death breath. This deep into Headquarters there was no need for silencing spells usually. Here everyone was on the same side. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, listening to the men's voices as they discussed plans. She could make out most of the sentences but did not always understand their meanings or their context. She felt better here, where she could pick out Antonin's rich, deep tones as he talked tactics, where she knew most people knew her parents and respected them, respected her. Everything here spoke of war, but at least here Pansy could unfurl, could express her fiery desires and her passions. The officers all looked at her and smiled. "There's a valkyrie! Malfoy's a damn lucky man," they said. And Pansy smiled, swathed in black and terrified on the inside. Here she could be feral and it alleviated some of her tension.

"If we could move two units this way…and then take to the air here…They can fight on the ground, but we have superior air formation," Antonin was saying.

"Not anymore," someone else, Pansy garnered a guess at Rookwood, replied seriously. "The Order has fantastic formation and we're a little battered on the flyer side. All of our flyers were boys we'd lost at the end of last war." There was heavy silence and Pansy twisted the fabric of her robes in her hands. She wanted to know what they were planning, when it would happen. She wanted to fight because sitting on the side was driving her crazy. She hated being idle.

A crash from within the strategy room and loud shouts of surprise made Pansy jump and fumble for her wand. She regrouped and sank even further into the shadows of the hallways, crouching slightly like a cat. She could almost feel her ears straining as she attempted to hear what was going on.

"We think Potter is in Hogsmeade. We can't say where but we think he will try to infiltrate Hogwarts." A moment of silence, then a sudden eruption as everyone began to talk and shout at once. Antonin's voice finally carried over the rest, giving out orders. Pansy pressed herself against the wall as men poured out of the room and in various directions. She cast a disillusionment charm on herself and waited. Dolohov, Rookwood and Rodolphus Lestrange were the last out.

"We're not ready to fight, it's too early," Antonin said vehemently.

"The Lord must know, Tony. We don't have a choice. I will make the report, you organize the units." Pansy stood as though fixed in place as her last haven fell apart, its sudden heavy but assured silence breaking out into utter chaos. Her temples were throbbing and she could not take her eyes off of Rodolphus and Antonin as they remained behind, arguing, even as Rookwood disappeared around the corner.

"Don't tell Bellatrix. She needs to stay out of this. She can't fight, Roddy, don't you see?"

"You don't have a choice in this, Dolohov."

"Do you want to lose your wife?"

"I lost her when she lost her mind and became the Lord's whore."

"Don't make me hex you, Lestrange!" They glared at each other for several moments before Rodolphus turned on his heal and left, his dark robes flying behind him.

Pansy, cautiously, emerged from her shadowed haven. "Mr. Dolohov?" she ventured, still clinging to her wand on instinct underneath her robes. Antonin turned sharply to face her. In the semi-darkness she could see his eyes widening when he saw here. "What's happening?"

He took several steps toward her, placing both hands on her shoulders. "Ms. Parkinson—"

"Pansy," she corrected automatically, staring up at him.

"Ms. Pansy," he tried again without dropping the formal particle, however. "You shouldn't be here. Are you looking for Draco?"

She shook her head. "Draco's at school. I… I needed to come here to… to…" She didn't know why she had come and Antonin was looking intently at her. "I want to fight!" she blurted out without thinking about it. Something inside her burst and she felt the adrenaline flooding into her system, filling her to the brim. She wanted this to end. She wanted to let out all of her fear and frustration and to fight.

Antonin only shook his head slowly at her. "You can't fight, Ms. Pansy."

"Why not?" she demanded, her voice rising slightly. "Because I am a woman?"

"No," he said quickly, but his eyes said yes. "Because it is too dangerous. We're not ready for what the Lord will want us to do. It's hopeless, Ms. Pansy. Don't you see?" There was an earnestness in his eyes that made Pansy shiver to the core.

She shook her head, strands of brown hair flying into her face. "No-no-no."

Antonin gave her shoulders a slight shake and a sob came free from deep within her. "There will be losses like we have never seen," Antonin continued. "I do not want you to be one of them. Do you have the portkey I gave you? Not the one to Headquarters. My portkey. Do you have it?"

Pansy paused before answering. She felt the cold metal of the Dolohov locket burning against her skin where it hung on a thin chain around her neck. "Yes," she said quietly, nodding slowly, almost reluctantly.

"I want you to use it when the time comes," Antonin said, looking into her face. "Right now, if you want to help, go back to school. Gather your housemates; tell them to get ready to leave. Hogwarts will no longer be safe soon, I fear."

"You're going to attack Hogwarts?" Pansy felt a long, thin needle of dread pierce something inside her. At his nod, she bit down on her bottom lip hard. "I still want to fight. There is nothing for me in a world ruled by Potter." Antonin was still shaking her head and she stepped away from him, blinking hard. "If it's so hopeless why are you doing it?"

"Because most of us don't have a choice," he said simply. "Promise me you will not fight."

Pansy stayed silent. She could not promise that. She needed to fight; she needed to let out all the pain that had been building up within her. Even sex with Draco had lately become animalistic – hard and painful, biting and clawing. Neither she nor he could avoid the need for an outlet anymore.

Voices down the hall, calling Antonin's name, interrupted them. He walked backwards, away from her, stepping into the ray of light cast by the open door to the strategy room, then back into deep shadow. "Please," he said softly, and Pansy could feel his eyes on her even if she could no longer see his face. Then he was gone and she was alone.

She slid to the floor and clawed at her color, undoing the buttons and bringing out the portkey locket. It glinted up dimly at her and she stared at it. He hadn't even told her where it would take her, only that she should always keep it with her just in case. "I still want to fight," she murmured to the emptiness. She wanted it all to end and yet, at the same time, the longer the war drew out, the more she was addicted to it. Addicted to the pain and the fear, to the loneliness and the strange, heavy feeling of being part of something bigger. It filled some cavern deep within her that she couldn't quite reach unless she was terrified, hurting or causing either or both of those.

Even more fully she realized that the world after the war could never be the world before it if they did not win. Potter would preside over this new world. Him and his posse, those imbeciles who thought they were the center of the universe. She could not take that world. She would not allow herself and those she loved and admired to be so humiliated, so degraded, to be lorded over by mudbloods and self-righteous idiots. She needed to get back to school and she needed to warn her housemates. But not, as Dolohov had suggested, to slither away cowardly into the bushes. But to fight. Fight for what they believed in, fight for their freedom and their dignity.

Because she was a valkyrie. Because Slytherins had their own brand of courage.

Because if Antonin didn't want to fight for himself, she would fight for him.


End file.
